A strong contender for the year’s best action movie, “Rebel Ridge” is currently Noah Ballard’s favorite of 2024—bar none. On this episode of our year-end series, we dive into Aaron Pierre’s otherworldly calm, Don Johnson’s shit-eating grin, Jeremy Saulnier’s penchant for stomach-dropping bursts of violence, and a movie that Noah calls a mix between Rambo […]
Author Archives: Chance Solem-Pfeifer
‘Sometimes I Think About Dying’ with Bennett Campbell Ferguson
We’re closing Year 1 of The Kick by asking guests to nominate a film from 2024 that they couldn’t stop thinking about. This first choice is right over the plate for me. Ben Campbell Ferguson returns to discuss “Sometimes I Think About Dying,” a sweet yet crushing character study set right here in Astoria, Oregon. […]
‘Eyes Wide Shut’ with John DiLillo
You can’t end a career with more enduring mystery than Stanley Kubrick’s “Eyes Wide Shut.” John DiLillo returns to explore how the film still reverberates (perhaps too conspiratorially) in the culture, the volumes it suggests about Tom Cruise, and why it’s a movie about learning the hard way to deal with marital complexity. I’ll add […]
‘Varda by Agnès’ with Jennifer Jones and Laura Glazer
“If all great filmmakers would make a documentary about their lives right before they died, wouldn’t that be so handy?” Couldn’t put it better than Jennifer Jones does in this episode. She and Laura Glazer are the co-founders of the Agnès Varda Forever project, and they’re here to talk about “Varda by Agnès” (2019), the […]
‘Megalopolis’ with Bennett Campbell Ferguson
What is “Megalopolis” about? The 40-year dream of Francis Ford Coppola to make his opus? A reclusive inventor who holds the key to utopia? Deviant capitalism? Cyclical violence? Aubrey Plaza giving *the* comedic performance of 2024? Bennett Campbell Ferguson is here to talk about the vast contradictions, bravura setpieces, and wild swings of “Megalopolis”—aka, this […]
‘Julie & Julia’ with Erin Carlson
Arguably the most influential rom-com voice in movie history, Nora Ephron ended her reign in 2009 with an ode to marriage, butter, and idealizing Paris. “Julie & Julia” is this week’s career finale, and author Erin Carlson is here with anecdotes from both her Meryl Streep and Nora Ephron books, plus tales from the set, […]
‘Horizon’ with Noah Ballard
In honor of “Megalopolis,” we begin a new series on great filmmakers’ last big swings. Today, it’s Kevin Costner’s all-in bet on himself, as he rewrites the frontier myth once again. Noah Ballard (Verve) is here to talk “Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1,” its baffling number of plot lines, questionable portrayal of the […]
‘The Bikeriders’ with Bennett Campbell Ferguson
End of the road for this kick, gang. And fittingly enough “The Bikeriders” (2024) is all about how no good hangout can last. But it’s also about a lot of actors—Tom Hardy, Jodie Comer, Austin Butler, Michael Shannon, and 15 more—bringing wildly different performance styles to the table in this requiem for a Chicagoland biker […]
‘Ghost Rider’ with Noah Ballard
Nic Cage brings the boys back together for a weekend of Ghost Rider. In search of the motorcycle rebel’s most demonic representation, we watched “Ghost Rider” (2007) and “Ghost Rider: The Spirit of Vengeance” (2011). What did we find? Floating skulls, hot chains, performances stuck between a Cage and a hard place, and two movies […]
‘Rumble Fish’ with Ray Gill Jr.
“The Motorcycle Boy Reigns” as our kick arrives at Rumble Fish (1983). It’s not set on the highway, but perhaps no movie in this series uses the idea of the motorcycle rebel to such cool, elusive effect as Francis Ford Coppola’s dreamlike crime drama, starring a young Mickey Rourke. Ray Gill, Jr. (Portland Mercury, Willamette Week) […]